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Waiting for a new face..

I’d been reading and hearing a lot about the “same face”-issue that a lot of people are having with the new models. So when I got back home after my vacation, I logged onto the beta to have a look. And while I like the new models, I have to agree that they definitely suffer from being very much based on the same basic face. There are very few variations. The original faces have a lot more differences in noses, mouths, eyebrows etc.

Fortunately, Blizzard are saying that they’re going to look at this. And hopefully fix it.

/fingerscrossed

It doesn’t necessarily require that much. But some of the faces look very little like their old one, and I see how people will be frustrated. Some people don’t care, and that’s fine. But they also need to realise that other people do. There are players out there who don’t care much about what their character’s face looks like. Maybe they play with a helmet on. Maybe they’re just not bothered. But there are other players that take great care in choosing a face, because they’re going for something specific. And if that is gone… Then their character is basically gone.

Still, I’m not despairing yet. Blizzard has said that they’re looking to make changes. I just hope that they can make the right ones.

To give you an idea, I’ve made copies of the new faces, next to the original faces (for some of the races). This way it’s easy to see the difference between the old face and the new. Some are somewhat similar already, others are not even close. Fortunately for us, Blizzard still has time to fix it!

Click for larger picture.

In general, I like the changes made to the dwarves. They’re a little bit less square. I miss their dark mascara though, and I hope it’s added back at least to some of the faces. There’s definitely quite a bit missing still between the new faces and the old, but they’re not bad looking.

Click for larger picture.

The gnomes are the race that feels the most complete out of the ones I’ve been running around with in the beta. Their animations are incredibly smooth, and I love watching them run and cast spells, melee looks neat too. That being said, their faces can still be improved. There are some changes between the different faces, but I’m annoyed by the fact that they’re all smiling. The original faces didn’t all smile. I want my somber-looking number 1 face back!

Click for larger picture.

The human female suffer a lot from the “same face”-syndrome. Some of the new faces I can barely tell apart. And I promise they’re all different ones, I was looking at the numbers as I was copying. Since the characters I tend to play the most are humans, I really hope they get this one right.

Click for larger picture.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the night elf faces at the moment. At least they’re a little bit different from one another, even if it’s mainly the colour of their lips. There’s a slight change to the curve of their lips too, while the rest of the face is very much the same. I’m curious to see how they will deal with the difference in the eyes between the original faces in the new ones. A side note; I really dislike how the new braid looks. The old one is nice and thick, but the new one is very “skinny”.

Click for larger picture.

You know, I’m not going to say anything about the orcs. When I made these screenshots they were very new, and you can tell because they haven’t even had time to change their eye colours!

In the end, I’m hoping that everyone’s character will look the way they originally created them, or close to it – just with more polygons. Since there’s a risk that won’t happen though, I really wish that Blizzard would offer everyone one free character customization. I think it would go a long way in making people happy.

Like this:

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Comments

Waiting for a new face.. — 6 Comments

That’s a very interesting comparison, thank you! I’d seen a couple of the “sameface” comments on fan sites but didn’t know what to make of them. These pictures are a good illustration though.

It seems to me that the lower number of polygons actually made it easier to give the faces more variation, since most of it was basically just painted on the texture (“no harm in making the mouth look a bit bigger than it really is”). I guess that when you actually have to tweak the model itself to change things like the eyebrows, lips etc. it becomes a lot more work.

Yeah, from what I’m understanding.. with them adding more movement to the faces, they’re basically adding them onto the same base face with (I’m guessing) the same sort of reference points. To make sure every face can do the same facial expressions. However, in return – we get less variation because too much deviation from their base face will make the animations not work. I can see why they’re doing it, but I do miss the greater variation for sure. Hopefully the “tweaking” they’re talking about will still make them look more like the originals.

Definitely agree with the Night Elf braids, they just don’t look right now. I’d say my issue with the Gnomes is that their mouths are just too big compared to the original models and that completely changes their personality.

Very true. Their mouths are quite big now compared to how they were before. And they all seem to be smiling at least a bit. I miss my somber faced gnome. What I do like with the gnomes on the beta is how fluent their animations feel when casting/meleeing and moving. Compared to the human whose updated casting animation I can’t stand.

I think it’s because we’re so used to our characters looking a certain way. Sometimes even a new hairstyle choice for my character feels odd *lol* Now they’re changing the entire thing. I’m feeling a bit better about it after the latest Artcraft though. The faces they showed there were a lot closer to the original ones than the ones currently on beta. So, fingers crossed!